On Sunday 09 September 2007, Bruno Wolff III wrote: > On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 15:11:52 -0500, > > Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I'd categorize it as saying it doesn't meet the needs of most people who > > could be using Linux as their desktop machine. The people 'here' are a > > And so what. That isn't the distro it is trying to be. That is more of an > Ubuntu goal. Having done significant testing on Ubuntu (primarily because of the superior software repository and lack of the 'mixing' issues), and having done some support of 'ordinary' users on Ubuntu, let me say this: when it comes to the kernel interfaces, Ubuntu suffers the same fate as Fedora does. Have to do that same things if you want to run VMware, for instance. The kernel interface issue is upstream, and any distribution tracking 2.6 is going to have unstable kernel API's. It is not a Fedora disease; it is a kernel development process disease, and it's broken. The decision to drop having a stable, security-updated, kernel line stinks. If you run a CentOS or RHEL base, you are going to have a stable kernel with security updates, backported by Red Hat. But, you know, I've had a few issues even there, where a kernel update did weird things (like reorder NIC's, remove support for an older RAID controller, etc). Reading the release notes and changelog isn't even enough for some of these patches; one must in some cases track the actual source RPM patchsets and changes, on certain hardware. At least the VMware binary modules drop in happily without a recompile. -- Lamar Owen Chief Information Officer Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute 1 PARI Drive Rosman, NC 28772 (828)862-5554 www.pari.edu
